Daniel Jones’ injury history should be a factor as Giants weigh future

By Ralph Vacchiano
FOX Sports NFC East Writer

No one has ever questioned Daniel Jones‘ toughness, not after the constant beating he has taken in his four years as Giants quarterback. And no one would be surprised if he fights through the ankle injury he suffered on Sunday and plays in the team’s next game.

Even if Jones does play, and even if he plays well against the Green Bay Packers in London on Sunday, and even if he plays well the rest of the season, it still wouldn’t erase the memory of this injury and the significance it plays in his long-term future. This specific injury may not last long for him, but it will surely linger in the minds of the Giants’ brain trust as it evaluates Jones and tries to decide what to do with him after this season.

It adds to this inescapable and damning conclusion: Daniel Jones always seems to get hurt.

And that is a big, red flag waving at the Giants, telling them they probably have to move on.

No, that isn’t fair at all to the 25-year-old Jones, who has never really been given much of a chance to thrive in New York. As Giants owner John Mara famously said, they’ve “done everything possible to screw this kid up,” with a constant carousel of coaches and — perhaps most importantly — a consistently terrible offensive line that has failed to keep him from getting pummeled.

But “fair” is irrelevant considering the Giants have to decide whether Jones is worth, at minimum, a $31 million commitment if they use the franchise tag on him for 2023. That’s a hefty price considering he has missed 10 of a possible 51 starts since he took over for “Iron Man” Eli Manning in Week 3 of the 2019 season. That’s nearly 20% of the Giants’ games.

There was the high-ankle sprain that kept him out of two games as a rookie. Then he missed one game with a hamstring injury in 2020, and another two weeks later with another sprained ankle after he tried to come back from the hamstring injury too soon. That left him obviously hobbled through the final two games of the season (though he played well in both).

Then, last season, he was knocked out of one game with a concussion, though he managed to return the following week. But in Week 12 of 2021, he suffered a mysterious neck injury that forced him to miss the final six games of the season. He then underwent offseason neck surgery.

Now it’s the ankle. Again. And again, it’s not his fault. Injuries come with the territory in football, especially with quarterbacks who like to run, and whose teams need them to run. And the risk rises exponentially when a quarterback is running behind a struggling offensive line.

But it’s still a big reminder of one of the few things that former Giants GM Dave Gettleman said correctly during his forgettable tenure: “Hurt guys get hurt. It’s just the truth.”

And the truth hurts: Daniel Jones is a “hurt guy.”

How, then, can the Giants even consider a huge investment in him for next season? How could they even think of any kind of lucrative, longer-term deal? At this point, they have to assume that Jones’ injuries will continue, that based on his history he’ll miss one out of every five games. It would be one thing if they were getting an All-Pro quarterback for the other four, but Jones is clearly far from being that.

And yes, there are examples of teams ignoring injuries — or injury histories — and giving players big contracts. Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott was still recovering from a fractured ankle that had cost him most of the 2019 season when he signed a four-year, $120 million contract in March 2020. But he was already playing under the franchise tag then. And more importantly, before his ankle injury, he had started 69 consecutive games to start his career.

That kind of durability matters, and surely new Giants GM Joe Schoen and coach Brian Daboll know it. They watched their franchise quarterback in Buffalo miss four games with an elbow injury as a rookie. But Josh Allen then rebounded to start 59 straight regular-season games and six playoff games since and has turned into an All-Pro.

Allen has proven he can be counted on to be there on game day. Prescott did, too, before the combination of that 2019 ankle injury and a fractured thumb this season caused him to miss 15 of his past 37 games. Manning, of course, was once the gold standard for durability, spoiling the Giants by gutting through every injury he ever had and starting 210 consecutive games.

When the going rate for a franchise quarterback is close to $50 million annually, teams can’t have them constantly missing games or not playing fully healthy. A history of durability is important.

And that’s not Jones’ personal history at all.

There’s still a long way to go before the Giants have to make a final decision on his future, of course. Franchise-tag decisions aren’t due until late February. Free agency doesn’t start until mid-March. Jones could still end up playing every game this season. And who knows? Maybe he rises above his dire circumstances and turns into an All-Pro.

None of that can erase the concern, though, or ease the minds of those who’ll be clearing the salary cap space or writing the enormous checks. The only way a franchise quarterback can be worth the kind of money franchise quarterbacks get is if he’s actually able to stay on the field.

Jones can’t. Or at least he hasn’t been able to so far. And for all the flaws that have been exposed with him over his first four seasons, there really is no bigger, more damning or more important one than that.

Ralph Vacchiano is the NFC East reporter for FOX Sports, covering the Washington Commanders, Philadelphia Eagles, New York Giants and Dallas Cowboys. He spent 22 years covering the Giants, Jets and NFL at large for SNY and the New York Daily News. He can be found on Twitter at @RalphVacchiano.

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